'Friendship is a Two-Way Street' Australian Foreign Minister tells Israel

(MELBOURNE / SALEM) - Australia's principled decision to expel an Israeli diplomat has been highly regarded throughout the world, not just for their stand against Israel’s abuse of Australia’s Passport system but especially because of their abuse of a long standing friendship..

The Aussies are shocked and saddened by the news as it breaks all across the country.

The Ministers office has been flooded with emails of support and commending him for his principled stand. The exact number we will never know as they were addressed to the Minister at Parliament House. Stephen.Smith.MP@aph.gov.au

However, we do know through our friends in Australia and the internet action groups for peace in Palestine that there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands who have requested the full speech and have emailed the Minister.

As you are probably aware, this is just the first example that a sovereign country is prepared to make a statement against Israel and its mis-use of friendship. This has been Israel’s behaviour not only in Australia, but also in Britain, Ireland and here in America.

Hello Minister,

Expulsion of Israeli diplomat

Well done and well spoken.

Now, perhaps, you would like to lead the rest of the world's foreign-affairs politicians, who, for whatever reasons, feel that they cannot, should not or will not condemn the daily abuses of the Israeli government against the Palestinians in Gaza, East Jerusalem and elsewhere, huddled behind the atrocious and inhuman Apartheid Wall.

Someone who has had the decency to stand up against the carrying out of one high-profile murder, by Israel, should not find it too difficult to go the extra distance and condemn those who are condoning similar, albeit less audacious actions on a daily basis against human beings that many of their predecessors have stated that they regard as less than such.

It is a big ball, but it only needs a slight push from the right quarter to get it rolling, because nothing could be more important, at this moment in time, than preventing what is clearly an attempt at genocide or, at the very least, ethnic cleansing, that is being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians.

Go for it, Minister!

Anthony Lawson
Australian citizen residing in Thailand. A retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. Use to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn’t find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

Your action on behalf of the Australian people in recognizing the defiance of Australian law by the Israeli government through its Mossad agency in its “extrajudicial execution” of a Hamas official in a foreign country deserves our thanks.

That it should have been necessary is warning enough that the current state of Israel cannot be trusted as a friend, especially since this deception appears to reflect a modus operandi of Israeli behavior, not only in Australia but in Ireland, England, and America.

In June of this year, The Plight of the Palestinians: a Long History of Destruction will be issued by Palgrave Macmillan, a collection of articles that unveils the deceit that characterizes Israeli political behavior. I edited this volume that carries detailed information by writers from around the world, including Australia, that identifies heinous acts of an illegal kind that together constitute genocide in Palestine.

The use of Australian passports to execute an individual, what constitutes internationally a defiance of law in favor of barbarous behavior, represents only one such disregard for the norms of human interaction based on respect, integrity, and compassion. I wish you well, Sir, and thank you for standing up to the forces that swell against those who do.

Professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. Serves as senior editor at MWC News and has written for Counterpunch, the Palestine Chronicle, the Pacific Free Press, the Atlantic Free Press, Information Clearing House, Dissident Voice among others. His books on the mid-east include Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy, The Rape of Palestine, and a fictional work, The Chronicles of Nefaria, to be published soon in Arabic.

Your recent action in support of the rule of law is noted and respected by many here in Lebanon. Increasingly, courageous persons, as yourself, in the private and public sector are not just noting, but are actively participating in history’s rejection of the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine and its serial lawlessness that has now spanned more than six decades.

Australia, some of whose citizens are in the forefront of those advocating justice and accountability are well served by your responsible ministerial action. So are those around the World and here in the Middle East who nearly daily see signs that the Israeli government’s free reign in the West and disrespect for other countries sovereignty and laws is being opposed.

Former Counsel, House Judiciary Committee, US Congress, Board Member, the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon

Thank you for taking a principled stand on Israel, a stand that the U.S. has not yet taken. We were warned against such "entangled alliances" by our first president, particularly where, as here, there is a "passionate attachment." With the benefit of history, we can now see how the U.S.-Israel relationship dramatically changed who we are as a nation. Due in substantial part to this "special relationship," the U.S. has been discredited abroad and weakened within.

This relationship has been an exercise in deceit since a Christian-Zionist president, a Democrat, was induced to extend recognition to an enclave of extremists. He did so over the objections of those best informed on the subject. That includes the Joint Chiefs who cautioned Harry Truman about their “fanatical concepts” and their plans for “military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East.”

We as a nation were deceived by our own better nature to embrace a relationship that has long been at odds with our national interests. The durability of the relationship does not pass muster as either rational or consistent with our values. Its persistence can be traced to the strength of a lobby that, to date, has escaped registration as a foreign agent. Those known for their skill at waging war "by way of deception" have betrayed the nation that most befriended and defended them.

Even when a Christian-Zionist president, a Republican, led us to war on false intelligence, Americans were unable to identity the common source of our troubles. Groups of Americans are now emerging from many quarters to resist the influence wielded on (and from within) our government by special interests, with this special relationship topping the list. Many supporters of Israel have been deceived to believe that this relationship is in their best interest. The facts confirm otherwise.

With facts and transparency will come accountability, including for ongoing treason while this nation is waging a war based on false pretenses. In order to betray, one must first befriend. In order to defraud, one must first create a relationship of trust. Thank you for clarifying that this relationship is not deserving of the trust extended. With the extension of recognition, this ongoing deception gained a platform from which to operate with perceived legitimacy, an issue that must be revisited.

Greetings, I am not of your country but still in love with it and your people that is why I am writing you.

Sir, on June 8 1967 Israel murdered 34 of my crew mates and wounded 174 others including me. I and my fellow mates have been trying for the past 43 years to get justice. That has not happened. My Government the United States of America, is covering up for Israels’ heinous crimes and continue to do so. No one should be allowed to get by with murder not even Israel. My wish is your great land does not fall under THE PASSIONATE ATTACHMENT towards Israel that my Government has.

It has cost us untold of, trillions of dollars, life and limb, blood, sweat, and tears for falling in to the trap of Israels’ own self interests.

Please Sir, don't go down that road of no return that is my hope and prayer for your great country.

It is with a grateful heart that I thank you for displaying your recent courage. The Israelis have taken arrogance and hubris to a new level and there are those of us that understand how difficult it is to stand up to those who seem to have unlimited power, money and support. The recent outrage of fraudulent passports in what has led to outright murder is just one more instance of this arrogance to the world. I wish with all my heart that we could produce some courageous members of our Congress with the bravery that you have displayed. They are sadly in short supply.

News of your firm action in expelling an Israeli diplomat with respect to doctored passports has reached us here in Canada, and I am very pleased that at least one country in the Commonwealth has the courage to do the right thing.

Showing courage in the face of what I'm sure was opposition from many directions has given me hope that perhaps Australia will be the country to bring about a positive change in the global community with respect to Israeli crimes against the Palestinian and Lebanese people. I only hope that other nations will follow your example.

Thank you for giving all of us with a social conscience a sense of hope, and I wish you the very best.

I have followed with great interest your principled stand in expelling an Israeli official as Australia's protest of the Mossad's despicable misuse of passport protocols anent the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh assassination in Dubai, January 2010.

The words attributed to you in the press are as forthright as any I've ever seen expressed by a diplomat of any country. My own country, America, is cowardly silent when Israeli espionage against it, when the Zionist Israeli regime and, by clear association, its settler/colonial thugs (many from Brooklyn, New York City!) illegally occupy and thieve Palestinians' land, desecrate Palestinian mosques, injure 90-year-old Palestinian women, desecrate the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories' ecosphere, steal the Palestinians' water resources, assassinate any number of Palestinian leaders, flout international law with impunity, and on and on...on my taxpayer dollar.

America has failed miserably to heed, in this 21st Century, the very warnings given to it by Presidents Washington and Jefferson more than 200 years ago: avoid "entangling alliances" and "passionate embraces" with foreign nations. We are so "entangled" with Zionist Israel that we are no longer a free, sovereign, adhering-to-America's-vital-national-interests nation. As an American patriot (Army veteran, 1963-67, career federal civil servant retired in 1999), I am appalled.

Minister Smith, your, and thus Australia's, clear and courageous example gives me hope that my own nation may yet see the folly of its ways, set, and hew to an independent, objective, moral and proud foreign policy.

Australia's condemnation of Israel for its abuse of a document of a sovereign nation and the specific cloning of Australian citizens' passports is to be commended not only because of Israel's illegal actions but also to protect the safety of Australia's citizens. These citizens, like those in the UK and other countries whose passports were similarly cloned by Israel, must rightly feel worried and seriously concerned to conduct any form of personal travel outside their countries for fear of being held hostage.

Israel has been a rogue state not only in terms of espionage and meddling in other nations' business, but also in committing crimes against humanity by conducting wars against neighboring states. This arrogance and defiance of international law cannot and should be condoned, and your statement to the Australian Parliament has reinforced that position.

I wrote this letter to the gutsy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Australia, one of the few countries that refuses to be jerked around by the insidious Israelis as they try to run riot over justice and humanity, words that have long since lost their meaning in the warlike state of Israel….

Knowing the pressures that you no doubt received from any number of circles in relation to this decision, including some no doubt from within your party, I feel you should know that in the minds of most fair-minded Australians, your decision was the right one and absolutely justified.

I spend most waking hours in reading and contributing to the underground press located in very large proportions on the Internet and know the influences that have caused and are still causing the serious erosion in US foreign policy at the moment which have brought to an end the real efforts at a just solution in the Middle East. These same influences are trying to promote another war similar to Iraq and Afghanistan with Iran, a non-combatant nation with no nuclear weapons and a signatory to the NPT. We trust you and your government will show the same fair-minded approach to this matter as well and not follow blindly the path the US is taking as a subservient puppet to Israel.

In light of all these things your decision renews some hope for people everywhere and particularly the long-suffering peoples in Palestine that at least one country has not bowed to such pressure. That is indeed a cause for appreciation of your efforts.

Finally, millions of people will be very grateful to you for your efforts and we all thank you, sincerely.